


7 Down

by onlytemporarily



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crossword Puzzles, First Kiss, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, My First Fanfic, Profoundly Stupid People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 17:15:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20100781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlytemporarily/pseuds/onlytemporarily
Summary: A crossword puzzle leads to a convoluted excuse to kiss.





	7 Down

**Author's Note:**

> Came up with a long-winded, complicated reason for a relatively simple activity (that does not feature crossword puzzles nearly as much as implied) and I couldn't get it out of my head, so here it is. First time publishing anything here, too. Hope it looks alright!
> 
> May be comically (or catastrophically) mischaracterized, but I've been reading and rereading this so long that it'll be for you to determine instead.
> 
> Tried to write with Gaiman's own style in mind, reader be warned.

_7 Down: A passionate kiss. (7 letters.)_

The letters M, E, U and T were already filled in with various bits of trivia. 

Aziraphale peered down at his crossword almost accusatorially. "I never could comprehend why humans would want to go and do a thing like that."

Crowley, from where he sat on the couch opposite him, glanced over his copy of _The Infernal Times_. "What, make out?" Aziraphale cringed, and Crowley gave him an incredulous look. "Oh, _come on. _Are you serious? Six-thousand years on this planet and you haven't got any idea?"

Aziraphale put the crossword aside. "Well, _love_ I can understand. Angels, you know, we're drawn to that sort of thing, all the intricacies of it. Pragma, agape, philia, the like. It wouldn't make all that much sense to you, I suppose..."

"Sure, sure," said Crowley, who, even after his tragically short career as an angel, did, in fact, retain a definite sense of the intricacies of love, and was rather resentful that Aziraphale had forgotten that. Resentful, and other things.

"...Romance, however, continues to confound me. If they could stop reinventing their courtship rituals every ten years, or come up with something _standardized _across their cultures—,"

"Like what they didn't do with dancing and magic shows and language and just about everything there is to—?"

The angel refused to be ruffled. "_Right_. If they could do that, I might be able to get a grasp on it. As it stands, I'm _completely_ in the dark. Of all the things they do, it seems so, so…" He huffed. Seemed so _what? _"...It's not for the likes of _myself_ to understand I suppose. Maybe _your _lot—"

Crowley persisted. "All this time, and you haven't even _tried _it?"

_"No!" _he told him, tactfully deciding not to mention that Crowley was the only person he could ever even think of kissing, and that he was still sorting that out, as he knew it was certainly the wrong thing to think, even if his heart didn't feel that way. Hence his unease.

He had just now convinced himself that his unease —not to mention lack of knowledge— was due solely to his holier nature, something something _higher purpose, ineffability_, something something, and _not_ any fault of his own, and that it was all for the best. Any more exploration into the matter would be, by process of elimination, _un_holy. Probably. He didn't want to think about it. Mostly.

He was, in a word, oblivious.

Much of his obliviousness was deliberate, a necessary lie, but much of it was tragically genuine, and he was no longer sure which ended where. That was the art of it. Incredibly early on in human history, in fact, Aziraphale had made obliviousness into an art form. It wasn't very _good_ art, and was of the sort that would only serve to make any observers very angry and insist it wasn't art at all, but it could still be called, as many things are, art, all the same.

(Almost at the same time, Crowley had made denial into a science, but that was altogether another matter, although a startlingly similar one.)

"Well, why not?" Crowley asked.

"I don't know, it, it…" Aziraphale scrabbled for a proper response the way a person does a bar of soap in the bathtub. "... It hasn't come up!"

Crowley made a noise that could have been knowing or noncommittal. 

"And what about _you?_" Aziraphale asked indignantly, folding his arms and frowning a little, determinedly not acknowledging why he was hoping he'd say no, too.

Crowley shrugged his black-clad shoulders, made a noise that was definitely more on the noncommittal side this time, and that was all. For a while, he stared at the ceiling, brow furrowed. Aziraphale waited.

"Humans, with the, the—" he made some vague gestures, none of which made much sense to either of them, and gave up. "_Lip_ _guitar_. What do they _say_ they do it for?"

"Well, most of the time, they say it's because they're in _love_." Even in his confusion, he couldn't help but smile about it for a moment. "But—"

Crowley made a big show of spitting out his wine. If any of it got on the furniture, however, it mysteriously —some might say miraculously— disappeared.

"_Well_," Aziraphale said, "Now that you've gotten _that _out of your system…"

"Eugh, _love. _Disgusting. Just terrible. Never loved anything or anyone in my life."

"But you can't mean that! It's not _that_ bad."

"Maybe I'd like it better if it _was!_"

"_No_, not—" he started, then saw Crowley’s wry grin and sighed. "You _know_ what I mean."

Crowley made another face for good measure. The conversation was as good as done to the angel. He was a fool, he thought, for trying.

Aziraphale, disappointed despite himself, returned to his crossword with a remarkably sulky silence. He had to be sure Crowley knew he was moping.

They both pretended to be preoccupied with their respective activities. After a few minutes, Crowley spoke, and Aziraphale sat up at once, eagerly abandoning his crossword, his sulk, and his earlier conjecture. 

"Alright, _fine, _you've convinced me. Can't stand you brooding like that."

Aziraphale struggled not to seem too self-congratulatory.

"Tell you what," Crowley went on, turning towards him, "Why don't you try it out on me, see what all the fuss is about?"

Aziraphale was thunderstruck. 

If Crowley hadn't been wearing sunglasses, he would have had half a mind to shield his eyes from the brilliance of the smile he beamed at him with. As it was, they still smarted a little.

_"Really?" _Aziraphale asked. "You wouldn't mind?"

"Yeah, why not?" he drawled, as if he was always this accommodating, "No skin off my nose, right? Don't go making a big_ thing _about it."

Aziraphale's own nose crinkled at the unfamiliar expression, but he disregarded it, hoping it wasn't of much significance. "But, er, you aren't at all worried about...?" 

"What?"

He nodded toward the ceiling and the floor in turn.

Crowley scoffed. "I'm sure the other angels do it all the time!"

Imagining that angels like Gabriel could do much else besides go around belittling principalities and being better than everybody made Aziraphale confused and a little nauseous, but he tried not to argue.

"And I _know_ the demons certainly do," Crowley continued, "Wouldn't make a lick of a difference to _either_ of them what _we_ did either way. And if it did, I could say I'm corrupting the innocent, and you could tell them you were tempting the wicked or whatever. But they _wouldn't _care," he insisted, clearly considering himself quite clever, "Because it wouldn't _mean _anything, would it? To us, I mean. Right?"

Aziraphale thought it would —or, _should—_ mean an awful lot, but he knew it wouldn't do any good to argue that, either. "Quite right," he said instead, and tried hard to believe it.

"Purely instructional. Educational. Whichever."

"Of course."

"Let's do it, then," Crowley said nonchalantly, stretching out on the couch in as cool and detached a manner as he could corporeally be. 

Aziraphale stared at him. _"Do it?"_

Crowley didn't seem to see what the issue was. "Uh, yeah."

"People don't just _do it_," Aziraphale complained, "It's supposed to… supposed to be _special._"

It was Crowley's turn to stare at him. "Oh, yeah, I get it," he said, in the way one would say when they absolutely do not get it, but is ardently trying to appear otherwise, "Special. Sure. Yeah."

There was a pause.

"So, you want me to take you to dinner first or something?"

"Can't you take this seriously?"

"I _am_ taking this—!" He shook his head impatiently. "Look, why don't you _show_ me what you mean. How humans do. Step by step. Our own little Plan, you could call it. With a capital P."

Aziraphale recoiled, scandalized. "That is a _nasty _comparison to make."

"Alright, lowercase p, then. Little steps."

He blinked, blundered a little. "I, er. Fine. I mean. I suppose…" He _did_ appreciate how much simpler things were when put in steps.

Considering it settled, Crowley stretched contentedly, crossing one long leg over the other. "What's the first step, then?" 

Aziraphale looked down at his chair, then at the couch Crowley was on, then at Crowley himself. "First step..." he echoed, searching for something scholastic to say, "First step is, er… _increase proximity._"

The distance between them, suddenly, seemed an impassable obstacle, the crossing of it a formal, final declaration of their intentions. With grave seriousness, Aziraphale got up, took those several steps across the floor, and fit himself beside the demon, sealing his fate. The forces of Good and Evil would surely be converging upon their location in a matter of moments.

It could not have been more than a few feet and a couple seconds. It felt like the hardest thing he had done in his life.

Somewhere else, the angel Gabriel felt the slightest twinge of irritation. The demon Beelzebub, in another place, was suddenly very vaguely annoyed. That was all. As to whether they even noticed it over their constant contempt for all things separate from the Plan, or if there was any correlation at all, was a mystery never to be solved.

Crowley cleared his throat.

"_Ah_, yes!" Aziraphale said, a little too loudly. "Step two." He paused, eyeing critically the slouch Crowley was still in.

"Sit up, won't you?"

"_That's_ step two?"

"Good posture is important, Crowley."

He made a long, melodramatic groaning noise. Aziraphale waited until Crowley had both feet on the floor, but given the goading look on his face, decided not to comment on the arm he slung across the back of the couch. It was as good as he would get.

"That good enough for you?" he asked, in a carefully-cultivated lilt.

Aziraphale's throat tightened. "_Just fine. _Now then," he said, swallowing uncomfortably, "Step, er, three. Why don't we, um, move a little closer, make things easier?" 

Crowley smirked. _"Things?"_

"Yes, _things_," he retorted tartly, "Step three: make _things_ easier."

The demon relented. They both scooted toward each other, the angel in far more undignified a fashion than the demon's, who seemed to sort of flow forward like the laws of physics were not especially relevant to him, which would not be incorrect.

Aziraphale regarded the demon's glasses. It would be far more convenient, he thought, if they were off.

"Step _four._ Ought to remove any _obstruction _to, ah…"

"Uh—"

Carefully, as if with an animal occasionally inclined to strike, which would also not be too far off the mark, he reached to take off Crowley's glasses.

And then his hand was interrupted, twitching, mere centimeters from his face. This was because Crowley _had _struck, and his fingers were currently curled tight around his wrist.

There was an expression on his face the angel didn't think he'd seen before.

_"_Oh— Oh dear._ I-I'm so sorry,"_ he bleated, "I only thought—"

Crowley looked at him, looked down at his hand like he had just now noticed it was there, and then let go.

"Whoops. Uh, no, no, by all means," he mumbled, waving the offending hand. "Don't mind at all."

"I know how much it means—"

"Go ahead,_" _he insisted impatiently, "I mean it. Force of habit. No hard feelings."

"I wouldn't want you to do anything you weren't comfortable with, my dear." 

The concern and sincerity in his tone could have turned Crowley’s stomach or filled it with butterflies. 

"Go _on_, angel."

Aziraphale hands hovered nervously. "You want _me _to...?"

"Yeah, adds to the, uh, experience or whatever."

"If you insist."

"I'm insisting."

His hands hesitated for one heartbeat more, and then, in a moment, did as they were told. 

In the soft afternoon light of the bookshop, Crowley's eyes glowed gold. The angel gave a little gasp— he had missed them. The demon had not.

"There. Obstruction removed. Step _four_ for you," Crowley grumbled, "_Happy?"_

The answer was a _yes_ so breathlessly beatific, so shameless and self-confident, that Crowley felt a little short of breath himself.

"Oh," he said, sort of stupidly. And, "Okay."

Aziraphale looked at him like he thought he was the loveliest thing in the world. Crowley, caught off guard, gazed back at him in a very similar way, though rather like he was just now coming to that realization all over again and didn't really know what to do about it. Gradually, without even knowing it, they began to drift toward each other.

It would have been perfect.

And then they both remembered it wasn't supposed to mean anything, and Aziraphale grimaced and glanced away, and Crowley closed himself off so completely he might as well have had his glasses on again.

"So," Crowley coughed, setting his glasses on a side table, "Step, uh. What's step five?" His eyes appeared almost apathetic, because he needed them to be that way.

It was very effective. The hope that had bloomed unbidden in Aziraphale's heart swiftly and sort of violently smothered itself. Despair settled happily in its stead.

“Oh, I don’t _know! _I don’t _know _the proper steps," he whined, "I… I made them up!”

This he said with particular distress, as if it wasn’t already more than apparent he had no idea what he was doing.

"They don't even _do _steps!” he cried, shifting restlessly. “This was a _stupid _idea. This is all—!"

_"Ideally, _then,” Crowley cut in quickly, contrite, “No more steps. What would they do, ideally?"

Aziraphale stopped, startled. A million images scrolled through his mind in a moment, some of them helpful, some of them inapplicable, some of them completely inappropriate, and some of them, somehow, _The Sound of Music._

"You really _do _care?" 

"Yes!" Crowley told him emphatically, "A whole lot, actually!" 

Aziraphale perked up, but Crowley caught himself and choked out, "Strictly educationally speaking, obviously!" and the angel sank back against the cushions.

"Ah," he said, "How could I have forgotten?"

"Yeah, well, terrible thing to forget. _Anyway, _what do we do now?"

"...Ideally?" 

"Ideally."

Aziraphale's heart started to hammer in earnest now, which was saying something, since it never had to beat at all. It seemed to be doing a lot of beating lately, and, at this rate, would soon be in the business of beating even more.

He took a breath, turned to face him, and made an effort to banish _The Sound of Music _from his mind. 

"They might take the other's hand, sometimes..."

Tentatively, he extended a hand and, when he didn't pull away, allowed it to just barely brush the back of the one Crowley still had in his lap. 

Aziraphale counted ten rapid heartbeats before Crowley's twitched, turned over, and wrapped around his wrist a second time, this time far more softly than the first. For them, it was more of a lifeline than a handhold, but perhaps that was the more appropriate term in the first place. 

The angel stared down at their clasped hands like the secrets to the universe could be found in them if he only looked long enough. The only difference between what he and Crowley were doing was that Crowley had recovered before he did, which he was currently taking advantage of.

"_Fun_ as this is, angel,” droned, “I _was_ wondering what else you had in mind." 

Centuries spent practicing indifference in front of the mirror were paying off for Crowley. Aziraphale could not say the same.

_“Angel.”_

“Oh!” Aziraphale sat up with a start, flushed, and, in a motion so frantic it was almost a slap, raised his other hand and put it against Crowley’s cheek.

"They seem awfully fond of doing something like this," he said, by way of explanation, exactly as surprised as Crowley was. 

Crowley looked at him wryly. “I can see the appeal.”

Aziraphale scoffed. “You could at least _try _to—!”

“No, no, go on,” he encouraged, gesticulating wildly with the arm he still had slung over the couch, “I’m just as _fascinated _as you are!”

His mouth was close enough to his hand to meet it, especially while he was talking, and it took all his effort not to pull it away. Aziraphale was flustered more and more by the moment, and it didn't help that it seemed Crowley didn’t feel the same way. 

“Well then they come close, like— ah, like_ this,_ and… _Oh.”_

They were nearly nose to nose. Crowley's breath was cool on his cheek. Reflexively, Aziraphale flashed a half-hearted, faltering smile.

“Yeah?” Crowley asked with a smirk, his snake eyes assessing him behind half-lowered lids, self-assured and disinterested.

And Aziraphale, frustrated, found himself hesitating. “I’m sorry, I…”

"What's next, angel?"

"Then they... then they close their eyes..." But he didn’t, and neither did Crowley.

"And then?"

His eyes stung. This was the closest Aziraphale had ever, ever been to the demon and he was overwhelmed very near to tears.

"I can't kiss you if you won't stop _talking_ like that, Crowley!"

"Well it isn't as if _you're_ going to actually stop me—!"

He stopped him.

The hand that had been on Crowley’s cheek took him by the chin, yanked him forward, and crushed their mouths together. It was messy and miserable and only for a moment, but it _did_ keep Crowley from talking, and for Aziraphale, that was enough. Spurred by indignation, though, the angel quickly had nothing to go on. When he pulled back, he was wiping at his eyes. 

_“Well,” _he sniffed, forcing a watery smile. He couldn’t bear to so much as look at Crowley, but Crowley couldn’t bear to look away. "Good try. Why don't I go in the back and get more wine—?"

When Aziraphale made to wrest his hand from Crowley’s, the demon only held on harder, wild-eyed and tongue-tied. The angel tried to glare at him.

“Let goof me, Crowley.”

_"Uh,"_ he said, and _huh? _and _wait, _and then, _listen_. He cleared his throat. “Wait a minute. Listen, uh, I don’t think— I don’t think we did that last bit right.”

“Crowley, don’t make fun of me.”

“No, I’m not. I mean I've been an ass, but— We didn't _do_ it right. I think we— think we ought to do it again. For, you know, authenticity’s sake.”

Aziraphale stared at him, disbelieving. _“Au— authenticity’s _sake?” 

“I didn't give you a chance. Was too busy being a, er, a bit of an idiot."

“I'm sorry, I… do you think—” He stopped, seemed at a loss. The hand he had on the couch landed heavily now on Aziraphale’s shoulder, fiddled with his collar, setting Aziraphale’s heart —and mind— to racing. 

When Crowley finally looked at him again, his eyes were liquid gold and apologetic.

“Do you think you could find it in you to kiss me one more time, angel?”

Aziraphale almost literally lit up. Delight welled up so fast and full in his chest that he could hardly speak, so he didn’t, only cupped Crowley’s cheek again and smiled like he held the world.

“Should I say ‘please?’”

“Best not to,” Aziraphale told him gently. 

The angel’s hand slipped out of Crowley’s to hold his waist instead, and Crowley’s snaked up around his neck to curl in his hair, which suited the two of them nicely. 

They did, indeed, close their eyes.

When their mouths met this time, they fit together as comfortably as if they were meant to be there. Aziraphale let out an unintentional, contented little sigh, and his lips parted in surprise, and Crowley’s opened with a laugh, and then they both simultaneously discovered they could be much closer than they had been, and that was all. 

And it was good.

For thousands of years, romance seemed like yet another language that Aziraphale had never really caught on to. He certainly never had any partner to practice it with, which didn’t help. As it happened, however, he had a far greater fluency in it than either of them ever would have suspected. He was so fluent, in fact, that Armageddon could have happened right over their heads and neither of them would have noticed it. Maybe they wouldn’t have even cared— it wasn’t as if anybody could blame them. They would have both been a bit too busy doing something they had been desperately wanting to do for the last six thousand years.

They would have carried on like that for six thousand more to make up for it, and were by all means more than capable, but it was rather late by this point, and they both were starting to feel it. Slowly, they drew apart, drowsy and disheveled and well-pleased, and sat up.

They both habitually reached for their glasses, and Crowley returned to his signature slouch, but he couldn’t help but drape an arm around the angel, who responded by resting his head on his shoulder. 

The love in the room could have made the average angel lightheaded and the ordinary demon lose their lunch, but Aziraphale and Crowley were another sort entirely. They luxuriated in it.

"I think that went a bit better that time, don’t you?” Crowley asked airily, swirling his wine, tasting it tentatively. He made a face and miracled it back to a more acceptable temperature.

"I think so, yes," Aziraphale said, sipping delicately at his own, deciding it should be hot cocoa instead.

They both took a long drink.

“So," Crowley wondered, "corrupted the innocent?”

“You may consider me _corrupted,”_ the angel told him primly, with a teasing little smile, and Crowley, startled, snorted into his wine. “Have I... tempted the wicked?”

The demon raised his glass in a toast. “Oh, _thoroughly_ tempted. Utterly. _Categorically._” 

Aziraphale giggled into his mug.

Crowley paused, pensive. “But where the heaven did you learn to _do_ that?”

“I don’t know…” The angel shrugged. “Divine understanding?”

“Didn’t seem very holy to _me._”

_“Really?”_

“Whatever you were doing, I don’t think She had anything to do with it.”

Aziraphale inclined his head gravely. “Good.”

Crowley, disbelieving, choked on his drink, and they both burst into laughter at the sound, holding onto each other and letting go of an eon’s worth of worries and doubts. It was a while before they quieted back down.

“That, uh, that didn’t mean anything, though,” Crowley said, as a matter of principle, but with his fingers in Aziraphale’s hair, he couldn’t find it in him to pretend to really mean it.

The angel snuggled closer. “Of course not, my dear.”

Crowley was silent. Aziraphale sat up to look at him, concerned, only to discover Crowley looking back_, _a wicked gleam in his eyes.

"One more couldn't hurt, then, could it?"

Aziraphale was already reaching for him. “Oh, I don’t think so," he said, and it was the last thing either of them said for a rather long time.


End file.
